post valentine zawadi to my mshefa

i thought
it would be
too obvious
i mean,
to write
you
a poem
on valentine's
poetry
for me,
is not
like a sizzling pizza
made hastily
for take out
with the requisite toppings
for an impatient
slightly irate
customer
famished
and weary
looking for a non-descript
instant dinner to gobble down
before they collapse
on their futon
after a grueling day
working for the landlord and the utility and phone companies
on the contrary
a poem
for me,
is not even like a meal
not even the leisurely one you make at home
a short story, is that meal
no, a poem
for me
is more like
a smooth pebble
or a cowrie shell
that you pick up
as you stroll down diani, nyali or bamburi beach
a pleasant surprise
that you pick up
with a knowing smile
and subsequently invest
with your own mystery and
paint with your own mystique
imparting it
with your own meaning
injecting it
with your silly fantasy

everyday
we greet each other with
i love you so muchs
and say good bye
with i miss you so so so much
we talk and talk and talk and talk
till the phone cards finally run out
and then we call each other back
or rather i call,
because it would be ridiculous if you tried
on the other cards we keep
in stock
and we laugh,
and we joke,
and we flirt
and we dream,
and we pine
and occasionally
we fret together
reminded each time
of the oceanic expanse
between us
and the temporal borderlines
that makes my midnight
your breakfast time
of late
you have taken
to calling me
your mshefa
and i still prefer
the ever so endearing
mshikaji
one
is often
surprised
at how
the telephone
and the internet
can build
a bond
that is
so often overlooked
in the feverish rush
to entangle limbs
and lock lips
rip lingerie and
slip into moist crevices

every single time
we talk,
our minds
make love
to each other
and not
always
in that
erotic,
sensual expected sense
lovers
develop
an uncanny
telepathy
that find them
anticipating
each other's
thoughts
and rescuing
those
trailing phrases
from fading
into
transatlantic
cross continental
oblivion
remember
that
short story
i told you
i was writing
from five months ago
well,
at some point
i had abandoned it,
too busy
experiencing
our real life
love story
to immerse myself
in that one
and yet,
our story
has suffused
that story
even though
i must
take parts
of you
and parts
of other people
and parts of me
and parts of
other people
playing
an authorial
deity
conjuring up
characters
who breathe
their own
fictional oxygen
in the demi-monde
i have imagined for them...
when
you are forty four
and a half
as i am
right at this very second
in fact
exactly fort four
and a half
because
it is
already
the nineteenth
of
the shortest month
you no longer
pen lines like
you are
the sweetest
rose
in the most
beautiful
garden
you no longer say
you are
the
beautiful
butterfly
that flutters
in my heart...
you simply say
to your lover,
who is your age-mate
you tell her:
ahsante
for being you
nashukuru
for you being
in my life....

kikomo....